Ladies and gentlemen, cuffing season is well underway. According to Urban Dictionary, “cuffing season” is when “during the fall and winter months people who would normally rather be single or promiscuous find themselves along with the rest of the world desiring to be “Cuffed” or tied down by a serious relationship. The cold weather and prolonged indoor activity causes singles to become lonely and desperate to be cuffed.”
In other words, it’s that time of year when all of your friends are posting cute Instagram pictures with their significant other at sorority/fraternity date parties or when all the fall foliage makes a great backdrop for your cousin’s engagement photos and you’re feeling #ForeverAlone.
To those of you who are thriving during cuffing season and having a wonderful time with your SO, I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy it. But for those of us who are still single it can be a lonely time. But the worst thing by far is getting dumped when cuffing season comes around.
I know it’s hard being single at this time of year — everyone is posting pictures decorating their Christmas tree with their boyfriend or of cute coffee dates in cozy cafes with their girlfriend. We’re all stressed and just wanna curl up in a ball under a blanket and cuddle with someone who makes us feel like we can get through this.
All I want at the end of the day is to be able to come home to someone who loves me despite looking like I wanna kill a man and despite the fact that I’ve complained 27 times about the essay I have due tomorrow that I still haven’t written. Unfortunately, I haven’t had that kind of person since I was a junior in high school.
I’ve grown used to it and have found some positives — no one’s bothering me to hang out when I wanna nap, no one’s interrupting my studying, and it’s one less gift to worry about. But in November of my junior year of high school as cuffing season had fully arrived, I got dumped by the boy I was in love with and being single was the worst thing in the world for me.
Let’s backtrack a bit:
My sophomore year of high school I briefly dated a boy in my grade (do not recommend when you go to a small school like I did) but after a mere two and a half months we broke up, deciding we were better as friends because sometimes liking a person isn’t enough reason to date them. Some may say the boy I dated after that was a rebound (we began talking the day said ex and I broke up) or that I was a little inconsiderate to start gushing about a new boy a week after my relationship had ended. But, truth be told I had been putting off talking to this new boy for awhile. We’re gonna call him Derek for the purpose of this article. Derek and I were introduced by a mutual friend because we were attending the same model United Nations conference and both loved hockey with a passion like no other.
Instantly we clicked and I later found out he went to school the day after we began texting and said to our mutual friend that he wanted to marry me because he loved that I knew hockey so well. I too was hooked very quickly and at the end of January we began dating. In March, when he told me he loved me, I wasn’t scared. I was so sure of my feelings for him and I had no reservations about saying it back. That was a big deal for me considering I was 15 and this was my first serious relationship. But, to this day I don’t doubt that I really was in love.
Foolishly we made plans for our future together — where we were gonna live, what we were gonna name our dog, and how many kids we wanted. I was naïve and in love and so was he. We were 15 and 16 but at the time that didn’t seem like it mattered. We’d be together and when we were old enough we’d get married and it would be like a fairytale. But, life is no fairytale and as we entered summer I began to feel things changing.
If there’s one thing you take away from this article I want it to be this: don’t tell yourself you’re crazy when you feel like someone’s changing. Don’t brush it off and say you’re being paranoid. Talk to them. Don’t ignore your gut. If I had done all of that instead of saying it was my anxiety talking or that he was just busy then maybe I wouldn’t have been so heartbroken in November. Maybe I would have done the dumping.
He worked during the day and I worked nights at a mall so we had a couple of hours between our shifts to talk or FaceTime throughout most of the summer and I hated it because I wanted to see him more. We were in a long distance relationship and because of our summer schedules we only saw each other 3 or 4 times the entirety of summer. Anyone who has been in a LDR knows its agonizing not seeing each other and I was going crazy.
I don’t know what made me think he was pulling away. It was just a feeling and noticing the little things in how his responses had changed or the fact that it would be hours before I’d hear from him and the excuses were so generic. Like okay you’re going to see your friends, but you all work at the same place and you see them all day. Sure, it sounds clingy and needy, but we really didn’t talk much that summer. I was missing my boyfriend as I constantly felt for the necklace under my t-shirt that he had given me as a birthday present. I suppose I had gotten used to a certain level of attention and affection from him that I wasn’t getting anymore.
I went to visit him for a weekend in August and met a bunch of his friends, which was fun but also wildly uncomfortable since one of them wasn’t my biggest fan. He was also pretty wary of holding my hand in public, which seemed weird to me but I went with it. I was just happy to see him and happy his friends (for the most part) liked me. It was another check mark on the list of things to get done to ensure we really worked well together. But, even though everything seemed perfect with us on paper aside from the distance, behind the scenes it was anything but that. I found that out in November.
To be fair, I had seen the breakup coming. We had met up the weekend before to spend the day together and things were strained and a little awkward. I left feeling unsettled, but tried to convince myself everything was fine. The following Friday I found out I was not wrong and that he too felt things had changed and he needed a break to figure some things out. I gave it to him on Friday and waited agonizingly until Sunday before I heard from him again.
I spent my shift at work on Friday night trying not to cry into the frozen yogurt samples I was giving out and when I got home my mom found me in my room, sobbing harder than I ever had in my whole life as I kept repeating “he’s gonna dump me. Derek’s gonna dump me.” I stayed like that for what felt like forever until I finally fell asleep, feeling miserable all of Saturday and anxious to hear from him Sunday morning as I tried to focus at basketball practice.
All it took for me was the text message saying “can I call you?” to know it was over. We pushed it off for hours, but finally he called, told me he just didn’t feel the same way anymore and that it wasn’t working. Oddly enough I didn’t cry, I hung up on him and started giggling. I guess it all felt surreal. I had grown so used to him over the past almost year and so excited for the idea of our future. How could a few words take all of that away? It just didn’t seem possible. Weren’t our plans enough? Wasn’t I enough?
The breakup hurt like hell — your first big breakup always does. But, we took our space and began talking again, trying not to lose the friendship we had built up along the way. All was going well until December. I swear that must have been one of the worst months of my life. Just as I began to feel myself getting over things he dropped another bomb: he had spent the summer through to October cheating on me. When I asked why he said she was convenient when I wasn’t around. Way to make a girl feel like she never mattered and that you were just in it for the physical, while also simultaneously shattering her self esteem.
It was a breakup that I dealt with all through “cuffing season” and well into the spring. Stupidly I kept him in my life until March, desperately trying to get him to feel that love for me that he did back when things were really good. It was dumb and I never should have done it but love makes you do ridiculous things.
The winter and spring of my junior year were the coldest, loneliest, and most heart wrenching months of my life. Even now, three years later, when I think about it I still get sad and a little nauseous. I don’t doubt for a second that even though I was only 15-16 I loved that boy with everything in me. I was willing to change who I was for him and that is something you should never have to do for someone. He never specifically asked me to, but I was willing if it would make things easier or him happier.
This isn’t meant as a way to bash him; I’ve made my peace with things (mostly) and we still talk from time to time, catching up about school and life and the new people in our lives. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we were still together, almost at what would have been our four-year anniversary. I still wonder why he did it (he never gave me a straight answer, more often than not just saying I don’t know). I’m still struggling with the self esteem and trust issues it left me with.
I just want you all to know that when it comes to relationships you need to trust yourself. You know that relationship better than anyone and if something doesn’t feel right then communicate that. No one should ever make you question your worth or feel like their actions are your fault. For months after I found out about his cheating I blamed myself and figured something was wrong with me to push him to do that.
The fact is sometimes people make mistakes and sometimes they’re just shitty people or aren’t ready for a relationship. Above all else, if someone hurts you, you have every right to feel that pain and to be miserable about it. Cuffing season or otherwise, being single sucks sometimes and breakups suck always.
Granted, it’s always a little extra nice to be able to come home during a snowstorm and have someone to cuddle with, but not if it’s someone who you don’t trust. So this cuffing season, whether you’ve been single for awhile or are going through a breakup, I want you all to know you’re not alone. I’ve been there on both the ends of the bad and on having a new exciting relationship during it. I’m sure we’ve all been there.
Just know you’re loved and I’m sending warm hugs to you because you don’t ever need a boy or a SO to make your life full. You need you and the people who love you, relationship or otherwise. Cuffing season can be hard when you’re the only single one, but one day you’ll come home in the middle of December with snow on your coat and the love of your life will have a glass of wine waiting and your favorite Netflix show playing. All in due time.
Happy holidays my lovelies and remember, cuffing season doesn’t mean everything. Seasons always end and new ones always begin ;)
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